Comfort and Joy
by MrsTater
Summary: On Christmas, 1921, Mary and Richard look for solace from ghosts of the past. Co-authored with Malintzin.


_**A/N: T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the fandom, all the shippers were stirring…including M/Rs. ;) We're just hours from third annual Downton Abbey Christmas special, and of course we're looking forward to it, but as there will be an absence of Richard, Malintzin and I decided to write a little M/R Christmas special of our own. It's AU, of course, and explores what Christmas, 1921 might have looked like in if Mary and Richard had gone ahead with their wedding in the summer of 1919. We hope this first chapter is one of many lovely Christmas surprises, and we'll post the second hopefully within the suitable time frame. After are, there are twelve days, aren't there? ;) From MrsTater and Malintzin, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Downton night!**_

* * *

**I.**

_Christmas Eve, 1921_

"Downton! Five minutes' stop!"

The ticket inspector walked hastily through the wagon to warn the passengers who wanted to end their journey at Downton station. Richard got up and reached for his coat, stepping aside to let Aaron Grant, his brother-in-law, do the same. With meticulous and precise gestures in spite of the pitching and tossing of the slowing train, the professor of anthropology took their hand luggage down from the racks above their seats. Studying his sister's absent expression as she observed the scenery out the window, Richard shared a complicit look with his wife-a once rare occurrence in their marriage that had become more frequent lately-and spoke up:

"I'll never thank you enough for accompanying us to Downton this year, _Abs_."

This had been his condition when Mary first suggested they might spend Christmas with her family again this year. His bitter rival had fatally crashed his car in the course of the summer, but the fact remained that Richard still hadn't set a foot at Downton since the ridiculous fight that had escalated into a more ridiculous brawl between the two men last Christmas night.

"Nonsense! It's you we should be thanking. Both of you," Aaron said in his broad New Zealander's drawl. With a shrug he added, "You gave us an out, you know."

"But the kids…" Richard nearly objected. In acknowledgement of the Crawleys' recent grief, it had been decided that Abby's children would stay in Edinburgh with their father. They were far too lively for such a sad context.

"They will have a wonderful Christmas without the now usual fight between us and Uncle James," Abby interrupted him with a resigned smile as she extended her hand to help Mary.

With a screech of brakes, the train halted with a final lurch that made Mary wince against a stab of pain in each of her temples. Opening her eyes again, she found Abigail studying her with the same shrewd attention to detail her brother possessed, and Mary hastened to accept the hand of assistance to her feet, ignoring the slightly dizzying sensation as the blood rushed from her head. She'd had a splitting headache since Newcastle, and by the time they reached York her stomach was in full rebellion, too, but no one need know that. Especially not Richard's sister who, comfortable as she was in almost any social situation, must be thoroughly unimpressed that Mary could not herself bridge the gap between her husband and her family. She couldn't even address Abigail by the nickname the rest of the Carlisle family used, not because of any snobbishness about nicknames-her own niece was _Sybbie_, after all-but because she felt in some way she had betrayed them all.

"Is your uncle still bent on sending the boys away?" she asked, then held her breath.

While she'd witnessed some of the Carlisle family feud at Christmas two years ago it had not concerned her-or even Richard, from a standpoint of personal involvement. After all, his cousin's children still lived with their mother then, just a distant subject of shame for their mixed parentage. Now that their Indian mother had passed away, they were an inconvenient reality to their grandparents, and the Carlisles had been at each other's throats for the last month with regard to their permanent living arrangements. In this renewed conflict, Mary wanted to be a more active participant in her husband's clan rather than an aloof bystander whose loyalty was to her father, yet it was a tightrope walk of being interested without interfering.

Last week, the drama reached its climax when Aaron lost his legendary self-control and insulted the minister at his own table. There was a limit to what a man from mixed ancestry-as many New Zealander was-could hear about a pair of mixed-blooded orphans, especially coming from their own grandfather. After this incident, Abby and her husband had jumped on the opportunity to help Richard by accompanying him to Downton.

Abby nodded. "The less we see of Uncle James, the better off everyone will be."

"It's reassuring to know it's not only the Crawley family who have a tradition of quarrelling at Christmas," Mary replied as they disembarked the train carriage, eager to lighten the party's mood before they got to Downton, where her own family might well be shrouded in gloom.

The blast of cold, _clean _country air that met her as she stepped onto the platform had an almost immediate healing effect. A deep breath cleared the claustrophobia of six hours on the train, settling her stomach and alleviating the pressure in her head considerably. Coming home from town always had this effect on her, and she wondered whether that had been at the back of her mind when she insisted they spend Christmas with her family. She didn't have to feign levity as she turned back to speak to Abby again.

"Charades on Christmas night always seems to bring out the worst in all of us. We're a fiercely competitive lot."

Instantly she wished the words unsaid as Richard, disembarking behind his sister, froze on the step. An accidental bump from Aaron's suitcase as he stopped short at the back of the group-too late-sent Richard into motion again, but before she could turn around Mary saw the lines of his brow and jaw sharpen as he set his face.

Feeling the nausea start to return, she walked at a clip toward the awaiting red Renault. _How _could she have let her guard down enough to let slip such a thoughtless remark? The tensions between herself, her husband, and the man she loved had swelled to a crescendo during Christmas night parlour games, when Mary had boldly taken a seat beside Matthew on the sofa, leaving Richard to brood in an armchair beside Granny. She'd justified her open laughter and joking, yes, even her _flirtation_, precisely because of her husband's less than merry attitude, and the worst part of it was that not one single member of her family reprimanded her for it, making it clear to her-and to Richard-that even after eighteen months of marriage, he was not their preferred choice of husband for Mary.

_Do you think you can make a fool of me? _he'd shouted at her afterward, his tightly tethered restraint having at last reached its breaking point.

_From where I stand you seem to be doing an admirable job of making a fool of yourself_, Matthew had insinuated himself into the argument, which only ended when Papa, hearing the commotion, dragged them apart, Matthew sporting a bloodied nose and Richard a blackened eye.

He'd caught the first train back to London, and that was the last time he'd set foot in Downton-or seen Matthew alive. Mary had stayed through the New Year, and her face burned now with the shame of how unrepentently pleased she'd been that it was her cousin in whose arms she'd waltzed at the servants' ball and whose lips grazed her cheek at the stroke of the clock that ushered in 1921. The worst year of their lives, and the last of Matthew's.

Over the click of her heels on the pavement, her husband's rasping voice followed her: "I'm afraid the only charade this Christmas will be that any of us is merry."

* * *

_Foie gras? _

Her mother's swooping script on the menu card blurred as Mary blinked against the ache at the backs of her eyes, worsened by the glaring light from the two great silver candelabras at either end of the dinner table, but she could make that out. _Foie gras. _Not her favorite meal at the best of times, but as it was she already had little appetite for the oysters placed before her at the first course. What she wouldn't give to be in Edinburgh for a simpler dinner with her in-laws in Edinburgh, even if it did mean listening to Uncle James.

She considered nudging Richard's ankle with her foot beneath the table, leaning toward him to concede this in a low murmur and a sly smile over her wine, but she knew there would be no corresponding glimmer of a playful _I told you so _in his blue eyes. A sideways glance revealed that though his appetite wasn't suffering like hers, he consumed the delicacies like an automaton, without relish. She looked away again before he sensed her watching him and looked back coldly, from seemingly as great a distance as the thousands of miles of ocean that had separated them when she phoned so urgently in July begging him to come home from America because Matthew was dead.

_Matthew was dead_.

That fact was not to be forgotten as her wandering gaze touched Cousin Isobel at the end of the table, also picking at her oysters and looking so pale and alone in her black mourning gown. Papa wore a subdued expression and a black armband tied around the sleeve of his dinner jacket. Mama had donned purple out of respect though it was not required of her, and expressed some surprise when Mary entered the drawing room before dinner dressed in festive green velvet. _He wasn't my husband_, Mary had replied, stiffly, before going to stand by Cousin Rose, who was only too happy to gush frivolously over both their gowns-and how handsome Richard looked with his new beard. _Of course you want to look your best for him. _

This was a mistake. Coming here, to Downton, was such a dreadful mistake. How had she not seen that before? Yet the idea of abandoning her family at such a time had seemed equally wrong.

She lay down her silverware and looked up at Richard. Weren't _they _family, too? One which, despite seemingly both their best efforts, had not been broken beyond repair, and might yet be blessed enough to grow. So fragile and precious a thing must be protected. _Forsaking all others…_

Richard acknowledged Carson's presence as the butler refilled his glass with white Sauterne. If anything, the wine was excellent. The whole family was in shambles, but you could always trust Carson to keep the sinking boat afloat.

By his side, Mary, who usually enjoyed this kind of sweet bouquet, had left her own glass untouched, and the gnawing question he had managed to silence for the past hours took precedence in his mind once again.

_Why on earth did Mary insist on spending Christmas at Downton?_

For most of the family gathered around the table-Mary's parents and grandmother, her aunt and sister and young cousin, and of course Matthew's mother-the wounds were still too fresh, as their drawn faces and slouched shoulders attested. Even Abby and Aaron seemed reluctant to break the heavy silence. They ate mechanically, with frequent glances at the mantel clock, waiting for the time to don their coats for midnight mass and be done with the social obligations of this supposedly merry grieving Crawleys were even deprived of the relief of a child in the house as Branson had taken his daughter to the village, where he was assisting the school teacher with her students' pantomime. Between two oysters, Richard repressed an amused sigh; more than three years of marriage to Mary and he was still unable to call his brother-in-law by his given name-not because of some misplaced snobbery as the Crawley clan wanted to believe, but because addressing a grown man who wasn't a close friend or relative so informally was highly difficult for him.

While he focused his attention on Cousin Rose's enthusiastic account of the taste for jazz London had developed lately - a story which made a dubious frown on the Dowager's face - he noticed that Mary's face was marked by a frown of her own as she tried to swallow an oyster. She definitely was not feeling well, and he had to wonder about what was the real cause.

Not for the first time in the course of their rocky marriage, Richard wondered about the almost irrational bond that enchained his wife to Downton. The fateful day when Crawley crashed his car between Downton and Rippon had left the family haggard, helpless against this latest tragedy that jeopardized the survival of the title, their very reason to live. That Mary, who had so many ruins to rebuild - grieving her lover, seeking her husband's forgiveness - was still able to worry about the future of Downton was beyond him.

_Matthew is dead._

The distress, the anguish in her voice still resounded in his ears.

And, in spite of all the anger and resentment that had sent him to California last spring, the moment Richard put down the phone he'd packed his bags and rushed back home to do what he seemed to do best:

Pick up the shattered pieces of Mary that Matthew Crawley always left in his wake.

The faint clink of silverware against china caught his attention and he tilted his head to observe his wife.

On her plate, the oysters remained untouched; her cheekbones seemed to stretch her pale skin, as if she'd lost more weight than she could afford these past few days.

This visit had come too early, Richard was convinced of it. But he'd promised Mary he would make efforts. If it was the price for the new foundation for their marriage, he would respect her wishes with regard to her family. He despised the Crawleys as much as they despised him, and the idea of another Christmas spent after the previous disaster tested him sorely. The barely veiled hostility in Lord Grantham's and the Dowager's stares as they disembarked from the Renault earlier today proved that the sentiment was mutual.

_It should have been you_.

Too bad. He had promised, so he swallowed another biting remark and gave Mary a smile he hoped would reassure her.

_You're strong, you'll be alright in the end._

We _will be alright._

His smile appeared so unexpectedly, following a flicker of darker emotion, that for a moment Mary could only gape at him. She seemed to peer into a kaleidoscope as the candles and the electric chandelier refracted in the sudden well of tears. She blinked them back and, thankfully, her vision cleared. The reassurance of her husband's smile was not enough; she wanted to feel it, too, so she moved one hand out of her lap to brush the edge of his trousers with her fingertips. Without hesitation he responded, his strong hand clasping hers beneath the table.

"Richard phoned his father this afternoon," Mary announced to the table at large, taking it upon herself to breath the uncomfortable silence since her mother apparently did not find herself up to the task. "They're having a white Christmas in Edinburgh."

"What a bother," said Granny. "It'll be turned to brown slush by the time midnight mass is over."

"Assuming anybody bothers to go out in it," Aunt Rosamund added.

"You can fault the Catholics and the Presbyterians for a lot of things," said Papa, "but not devoutness."

To Richard's credit, his smile didn't falter at the jab which was no doubt also aimed at his lack of religion, though the deepening of the creases at the corners of his eyes didn't escape Mary's notice.

"Of course Granny believes the only romantic snowfalls occur in the country," said Edith, with a wry grin at Richard.

She was the only member of the immediate family who attempted to be civil to him, which Mary had only recently come to appreciate, though at the moment she wished Edith had kept her mouth shut-and that she had, too.

It had snowed the last Christmas she'd spent here, too, when she had allowed herself to be caught up in the dizzying flurry of flirtation with Matthew.

Her fingernails dug into Richard's hand as she squeezed it, gripped by an irrational fear that he knew her thoughts and would let go if she loosened her old on him. That he was here at all was nothing short of a miracle-not only _here_, at Downton, after everything that happened last Christmas, but here, _with her_, after everything she'd done. That he'd dropped everything in America, boarding the first train he could catch to New York and catching the first steamer back to England, had not been at all the reaction she'd expected to her news that Matthew had been killed in a car crash.

They'd scarcely spoken during Richard's absence, he having departed in stony silence following her stubborn refusal of his entreaties to accompany him to California. _How can you not be even a little bit curious to see an American castle? _he'd asked in exasperation when she turned her nose up at the publisher Mr. Hearst's invitation; likewise, she'd rejected his suggestion that she stay in Newport with Grandmamma while he went on out west, prompting him to fling at her sarcastically, _Doesn't it bother you that Martha will prefer me to her own granddaughter?_

He'd had little enough to say about her news, but with Richard-most ironically, given his profession-actions spoke so much louder than words, and his swift departure had compounded the guilt she already felt at phoning him in tears about the death of his rival.

For Matthew had become his rival-in every sense, not only for her affections. His funeral had been Lavinia's all over again when Mary stood at the brink of his grave and confessed to her husband: _I put him there. I told him we had to end it, and he crashed his car. _Richard had not offered her an arm to walk her back to the house. He'd walked away from her, and she'd been so certain it was for good.

"How is Mr. Carlisle?" Edith persisted, darting her eyes to Richard's sister. "He's snowed in with family, I hope?"

Mary's fingers were going to leave some mark in his palm. Obviously she no longer enjoyed the evocation of a white Christmas anymore. In spite of the pain, Richard found himself repressing a smile as he caught Abby roll her eyes at the question. She was supposed to be his shield for the duration of his stay, not make the situation even worse, so he answered before she could:

"Our cousins from Inverness traveled south with their horde of unruly children, and Abby's own tribe's been keeping our father busy since the beginning of Christmas holidays."

"I suppose he'll be very happy to see us disembark the train on the twenty-sixth," Aaron went on with a frank smile of his. "And I definitely think Mark is going to take all his merry attendance to Christmas mass. A long walk in the cold does wonder to overexcited minds and restless limbs."

As usual, he seemed unaware of the tension around the table. His status as a professor at the University of Saint Andrew gave him the aura of an oblivious scientist in which he cloaked himself whenever he wanted to make a point in a social gathering.

"Marmaduke used to enjoy a brisk walk to midnight mass at St. Peter's," Aunt Rosamund said, and Mary was relieved yet another family member seemed to be in a conciliatory mood; Christmas made her nostalgic. "It's a pity it's too dark to walk down to the village."

"There are _some _advantages to city life," said Rose, chin tilted upward in the prettily defiant expression Sybil had so often worn to dinner.

A footman's gloved hand reached around Mary to take away her untouched plate of oysters in preparation for the next course, though her relief was short-lived as the _foie gras_ came out. Hastily she reached for her water glass, hoping to settle her stomach. She felt Richard watching her in concern, and she relaxed her grip on his hand, realizing that her fingers were clammy around his.

"We can walk to morning service if you like," Papa told Rose with a look of indulgence.

Across the table, Abigail's lips twisted in a smirk at her brother. "Midnight mass _and _Christmas morning-can you handle that much church, Richie?"

Mama's eyes rounded, more exaggeratedly than Mary's had done her first Christmas in Edinburgh when she met the sister from New Zealand and had been astonished that anyone dared address Sir Richard Carlisle by a nickname. It had endeared Abigail to her then-not to mention revealed a softer side of her husband-but now Mary wished her sister-in-law were not _quite _so at ease in the company of strangers, even though that was the very reason she had consented to Richard's request to invite them in the first place. His religious apathy might be inconsequential to his own family, but to hers it was another strike against him in comparison to pious Matthew, who'd first settled into Yorkshire by touring the local churches, and who now was even saintlier as he rested in the churchyard.

None of them were helping to mend the fractured marriage-and her family seemed bent on going out of their way to actually harm it. But how could they do otherwise? Matthew having carried her secrets to his grave, only Mama knew the shaky foundation upon which her marriage had been built, and only Richard that it had been cracked almost beyond repair by infidelity.

She looked up at him again, his jaw muscle flickering beneath the skin as he picked up his wine glass again, and wished he would give her another of those reassuring looks that said this, too, would pass.

"Actually I'm not sure I can," Mary said, as Jimmy placed the main course before her. "I was thinking I might stay behind tonight."

Richard and his wife did not share many values, but at least they could rely on each other on the religious front. Under the table, he gave Mary's hand a gentle squeeze of silent thanks before finally releasing it, as he observed the reactions around the table. Cora's eyes went wide, big and moist while her husband almost choked on his Sauterne. Naturally, the Dowager's expression was transparent, wordlessly accusing him of his bad influence on her granddaughter. Isobel's mouth gaped in a disapproving frown that her son had inherited from her.

Since Richard considered that the only good midnight mass was a ceremony filled with children's mischief and general mayhem like the sudden blaze of the stable straw or the kidnapping of Jesus-two deeds he was still very proud of decades after their occurrence- attending in the stuffy atmosphere of the dull Downton church was bordering on unbearable. A bad sermon punctuated by children's laughs and hushed reprimand was bad enough, a bad sermon in a subdued atmosphere for fear of hurting the Crawleys' feelings was totally unbearable.

If you added the painful memory from last year when his wife and her _cousin_ took their sweet time walking back from church by the light of a lantern in the softly falling snow, leaving him to seethe and pace in the saloon under the family's unsympathetic stares, he had to admit that Mary's decision gave him some relief..

_If they could get through these two days, they might have a chance, after all._

"Lady Grantham, before you accuse me of corrupting Mary, let me tell you that Abby's twins brought a nasty bout of flu from school and generously spread it around. We're just recovering."

It was half a lie: he'd had a runny nose for two days and Mary complained of a headache and nausea for half a day, but her pale face and lack of appetite made it plausible.

He turned to her and offered another timid smile.

Come to think of it, she had been very tired lately, and when they dressed for dinner tonight she confessed to another headache which she dismissed, almost too readily, as the effects of railway travel. Flu was not the only plausible explanation.

Had the operation worked after all?

He did not dare to hope.

"I'm not sure your infecting the infirm among us is preferable to your corrupting the young," Granny muttered, tucking into her food.

"I'm not sure the flu would be any match for you," said Isobel, sounding more like her old self than Mary had heard since Matthew died.

"Mary, you didn't tell me you'd been unwell," her own mother said, and Mary wished Richard had thought of any excuse than _flu_. Had he forgotten what had happened the last time that illness had come to Downton?

"Because I haven't been," she lied, and did her best to smile. But the smell of the duck as she cut into it, to prove she was all right, resulted in a grimace. "Richard can be a little over-cautious. As a husband should be," she added, to smooth over any unpleasant memories the previous comment might have dredged up with regard to his attentiveness.

She made the mistake of looking up at him, and the intensity of his gaze, the familiar furrow between his eyebrows that always appeared whenever he was puzzling something out, made the knot in her stomach tighten. She'd hesitated even to mention her aching head and upset stomach yesterday, though she'd hoped he would chock it up to motion sickness from the train rather than the favorable outcome of the surgery she'd undergone in August. It wasn't implausible, after all, and a man shouldn't be _that _attuned with feminine concerns, should he?

"Don't feel you must stay with me," she told him, mustering a playful tone, after she'd forced herself to take a bite, which she'd washed down with a long drink. "You might earn a little credit with your Uncle James if you attend midnight mass."

_Over my dead body._

Abby's steely glare from across the table conveyed the same sentiment. Even if it was only a pleasantry, a little joke made at his expense in order to put the flu debacle behind them, the idea that any of the Carlisles present around the table would do anything to please their uncle was quite grating, especially these past few weeks.

"I'm afraid Uncle James lost interest in Richie's soul long ago," she commented with a tight smile.

Richard had no answer to that-not a polite one, anyway. The man was an insufferable bigot and an hypocrite, and earning credit with him was the last thing Richard desired at the moment.

"Don't worry Richie," Aaron cut in with his most pacifying smile, the kind that indicated that social disaster was at end. "Abby and I will represent the Carlisles dutifully. I've always wanted to observe the way devotion manifests itself in a deeply hierarchized, Christian European rural setting. Midnight mass is going to be fascinating."

And not for the first time since he first met Aaron Grant in Glasgow, Richard wondered if his best friend-turned-brother-in-law was a genius or a social moron.

"If you're going to trot out the academic vocabulary to call us snobs," said Granny, "the polite thing would be to wait until after dinner port."

Mary rolled her eyes-though she supposed she ought to be grateful that, for the moment at least, Richard was not the member of his family whom _hers _found most irritating. And that at least they were all talking again. Spats were better than silence.

"I think what the Dowager Countess means to say, Mr Grant," said Isobel, "is that the Christians of this rural European setting attend midnight mass for much the same reason all of us have, since the first Christmas Eve."

"And why is that, Mrs Crawley?" asked Aaron, tilting his head to regard her with genuine interest.

She hesitated, drawing a deep steadying breath, though it did not entire keep the tremor from her voice as she answered, "For glad tidings of comfort and joy."

"That isn't what I meant to say," Granny said. "But I agree with the sentiment."

"As do I," said Papa, and raised his glass. "And I'll drink to it."

Mary's chest tightened with a swell of emotion. _This _was why she had been unable to stay away from Downton at Christmas, particularly a Christmas like this one, where they were all reeling from loss and struggling to find their way forward.

_Amen._

Richard raised his glass as well, answering his host's toast. Even the most irreligious man had to agree that there was something to Christmas day, be it a miracle birth, the long awaited solstice that announced longer days or more simply the very human wish to believe they were a better animal than they actually were. He reached out again to catch Mary's hand.

_To the comfort of family, fragile as they were._

* * *

Mary had not brought a maid along to Edinburgh, so after a week of making do with her own hair, she had been more than happy for Anna to assist her freshening up and changing for dinner. Doubly so, after her ill-thought remark at the station, to look up into the dressing table mirror and meet the pair of kind blue eyes that had offered her so much reassurance over the years-always compassionate, but never pitying-even when her own troubles weighed so heavily on her.

Following the fraught family dinner, however, the only blue eyes Mary wanted to see reflected apart from her own were her husband's as he unbuttoned his shirt behind her while she carefully removed the pins from her hair, letting the curling dark waves fall down her back. They were so seldom truly alone, and though one or two of the servants must linger downstairs, most of them had trudged off, bundled up and bearing lanterns, to attend midnight mass along with the earl's household. It was too rare an opportunity to pass up, having the vast halls of Downton all to themselves, and Anna deserved to spend Christmas Eve with her own husband.

She started to reach for the silver-plated hair brush that lay on the polished cherry surface, then reconsidered, gathering her hair up in the approximation of a bob, turning her head this way and that to examine herself at all angles-especially the ones that least accentuated the fine lines that were beginning to form at the corners of her eyes, despite having tried nearly every cream the shops advertised as preventing such signs of age.

"I think I might do it, finally," she said. "Bob my hair, I mean." She swiveled on the bench to face Richard directly. "Would you mind terribly?"

Richard grinned as he removed his cufflinks and put them on his nightstand. Mary could be so terribly vain, and those moments, before and after dinner, when she studied her reflexion in the mirror, were so precious because of this unrestrained yet innocent display of vanity. At the same time, those were the moments when she became truly unguarded, and more than once, Richard had wondered if the only person who truly knew Mary wasn't Anna, and just her.

Not the husband or even less the lover.

Three measured steps brought him behind his wife, and he bent to kiss the revealed nape of her neck. Even if he recognized Anna's importance in Mary's life - her true confident - he could appreciate the fact that, for the first time, his wife preferred his presence to her maid's to accompany her nightly ritual.

"We live in a free country, you can do as you wish."

Mary's back went very stiff as she tried not to squirm at the tickle of his soft lips and the warmth of his breath on her sensitive skin.

Sex had been a strange and varied experience with Richard. After their restrained courtship, he had surprised her not by proving a skilled and generous lover, but by being a passionate one. Raw from Matthew's rejection, the discovery that her fiance was in love with her after all gave Mary something like the excitement Richard had previously accused her of not having for their approaching wedding date, and if she had not floated down the church aisle on a cloud of romantic bliss, she had also not felt shackled to him when he slipped the golden wedding band onto her finger. The balance of power had been restored: he might ruin her, but she could break his heart.

For the first year of their marriage, she had been, if not precisely happy, content-which was much more than she'd expected since Kemal Pamuk died in her bed. There had even been times when she thought her feelings for Richard might not be so unequal to his as she had believed, that someday there might be no gap at all. But with each month that passed without a sign that they might have the noble-blooded children he'd once spoken of as one of the benefits of their arrangement, his confidence waned, while she was secretly relieved. Sex occurred with less frequency, squabbles more often. The honeymoon was over-and the marriage nearly had been, when Matthew came back into her life as Richard withdrew from it.

Thank heaven they hadn't lost this, she thought as he continued his ministrations along her neck and collarbones, his fingers grazing beneath the silk of her dressing gown to push it aside. Thank heaven they had found their way back to each other. The operation had been a necessary step to rebuilding what they'd broken, a leap of faith that they might do so on a surer foundation than before.

"I know I can," she replied, breathily as she gave up self-control to the pleasure he was working on her. "Don't you have any preference?"

She uncurled her fingers from where they bunched her hair, releasing it to fall in his face as he nuzzled along her neck and collarbones.

"Mmh, this needs proper reflection," he answered, smiling as he enjoyed the smell of her hair. "On the bad side, cut hair means less to play with." He emphasized his point by raking his fingers the long brown strands as he straightened up to watch her face in the mirror once again. Satisfied that she was smiling too, he went on: "On the good side, more access to your neck." He gathered her hair and lift it so that he could kiss her neck again. "On the good side for both of us," he added, "the less time spent on your hair, the more time spent in bed."

There was no way in hell he would voice a personal preference on the matter. Not after everything that went on. Not when one knew what, or who, had stopped her from actually crossing this fashion Rubicon.

"After all," he spoke again, catching her stare in the mirror. "You tolerated my own recent and vain experimentations."

If there was anyone who could relate to the need to change the face he saw in the mirror every morning, it was him. For the last year, he had probably tested all the possible facial hair, from stubble to the mustache currently favored in Hollywood, going through a brief goatee phase before settling on a more conservative and short beard.

Mary pressed her lips together against a laugh, though her shoulders quaked beneath his palms as she pictured the series of transformations Richard's face had undergone in recent months.

"I never realized how many variations on beards and mustaches there were, until I got tickled or scratched by them every time I kissed my husband," she said. "And as I recall, I veto the mustache vehemently."

Richard's eyes twinkled at her teasing, and he leaned forward to rub his chin against her cheek. She did like the beard he currently sported, and hoped he'd keep it; ironically, even though it prickled her skin, it softened his sharp features, made him look distinguished, flecks of grey here and there among the mottled golden red. Shivering, she returned her gaze to her own face in the mirror and sighed at her indecision.

"If only I had the insurance you do: a bad mustache can be shaved off and grown back into something nicer in a few days. A bad haircut could take years to grow back out. I've never had more than a trim my whole life…"

Perhaps that was precisely the reason why she ought to just bite the bullet and have it bobbed.

"I'm sorry," she said, with a little shake of her head. She lifted the lid of a little pot of hand cream and after he stepped back from her and resumed undressing, she rubbed cream onto her elbows and hands. "You must find this discussion frightfully boring. How many times have we had it, now?"

At least of all the discussions they'd had repeatedly, this one didn't involve arguing-just her characteristic paralysis of indecision. Did Richard recall the first time they'd had it? When the war had just ended and Matthew said he hoped _she _wouldn't do it? If he did, perhaps it might prove to him that she really had put her past behind her.

She got up from the bench and faced him. "I'll do it. And then if it's horrible, I'll simply buy a lot of very nice new hats."

"And I'll offer you nice earrings," he said jokingly as he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in a hug. They remained silent for a little while, Mary relaxing in his embrace.

"Are you feeling better?"

"Better, now that we're alone"

Richard had to smile at this rather uncommon admission.

"At the risk of bringing back you headache, what do you think we ought to do about the kids?" he asked almost absently.

It felt very nice to be back to this quiet complicity. Of course, at one point of their marriage, he had wished for more, much more. In the end, he had almost lost her.

"_You don't ask me why I did it?"_

_"I know why. It's why you ended it that I'm curious about, honestly."_

If they could settle in this quiet routine for the decades to come, he would be very happy man. Nothing good came from hoping too much and then being disappointed to the point of bitterness. If they could be good team, it would be sufficient.

Mary remained still for a moment in his arms, her cheek resting against his shoulder and his heart beating strong and steady as she contemplated her answer. He'd never asked her advice on a family matter before, and though she was pleased to be consulted-especially in light of the frivolous conversation she'd just made-she wasn't sure what wisdom she had to I contribute to this situation.

"I suppose it would hardly be fruitful to try to beat a sense of human decency into your uncle?"

"Fruitful? No." He sighed, holding her tighter. "Cathartic? Hell yes! The problem would be I'd need to negociate with Abby and my father to get to hit him first." He let her go and walked back to the valet where his pyjamas waited for him. He carefully folded his white shirt and trousers before putting the pyjama bottoms on, deciding that the central heating was once again far too warm to bother with anything more. Growing serious, he went on in a low, pensive tone. "Dad and I talked a long time with Abby yesterday… She can't take them home, she already has her plate full with her own family, with the twins especially. Our cousins in Inverness would be willing, but the boys would stand out too much up there, and that would be a nightmare for them. Which would leave… us…"

Not an ideal solution, granted, especially given the fragile state of their own marriage. But the alternative of seeing Uncle James kicking the kids out was intolerable.

"It doesn't have to be forever," he explained as he looked for her stare in the mirror, anticipating a possible and reasonable objection. "They're old enough to be sent to boarding school - they attended one in India. People will talk, but I can frighten them into keeping their thoughts for themselves."

Mary padded across the room to the full-length mirror.

The unsettled feeling had returned to her stomach-or she had become aware of it again-and her hands were unsteady, too. To give them something to do, she reached back to draw her hair over her shoulder, raked her fingers through it to separate it into three lengths, and began to weave them together.

"London would be a more likely place for them," she said, then huffed in frustration as she saw the mess of a plait she had twisted her hair into. She pulled it out and began again. "But I...That is to say the timing is not...ideal…"

"I know, that's what I told Abby. The boys' parents were irresponsible to bring them into a world that wouldn't accept them, but it's not fair to make them suffer for our drama."

He walked to Mary and put his arms around her waist, trying to discretely feel any change in her physiognomy. Much to his amusement, her frown deepened when she began to braid her hair for the third time. In spite of his desire to put aside this unsettling topic and resume companionable chatter with his wife, Richard pressed on:

"To be honest, I don't know if I've the energy necessary for this kind of fight. Maybe a collective custody would be a temporary solution. I can put them into a good boarding school where they would meet boys from the rest of the Empire, like they did in India. Abby or my father could take them some holidays while we take them for the remaining ones. This would lead us to summer, by which time a miraculous solution will present itself."

"It seems cruel to shuffle them from relative to relative," Mary mused aloud as she inspected her hair in the mirror, pinching the end of it. The third time was the charm, and, satisfied-more or less-she took a ribbon out of her dressing table to secure the end. "They may be in school most of the time, but I should think they need a sense of stability and consistency."

In reflection, she saw Richard run his hand over his chin, his beard rasping against his skin, in a familiar gesture of frustration.

"Ideally," she added. "And _ideally _the boys' grandfather would love them no matter where their parents came from. So at least they would have that stability, with Abby and your cousins and…"

Her words trailed off, and she pressed the end of the grosgrain between the pads of her thumb and index fingers. She had to tell him. She had planned to, very soon, though she hadn't meant to like this, heaping one life-altering announcement on top of another life-altering decision, but she couldn't very well let him go on thinking she didn't want to help.

"Richard," she said, letting out her breath and releasing her hair, watching it fall over her breast, and then as her gaze traveled downward noticing a loose thread in the embroidered hem of her dressing gown. "I hope you know I would agree unequivocally if it weren't for…."

She raised her eyes to meet his, bright blue beneath his furrowed brow as he anticipated the conclusion of her thought. The hope she read there so plainly made her heart do a little flip-flop of excitement such that she wondered suddenly why she hadn't told him sooner. And why on earth hadn't she turned around to look him directly in the eye?

She did now, though she still restrained the smile she felt tugging at her cheeks. "Dr. Ryder said he would be surprised if I wasn't pregnant within six months. It's within six months."

Richard took her in his arms once again as he listened to the long awaited news.

In the first year of their marriage, before the nightmarish last Christmas, he had hoped for such news almost desperately. Falling for Mary had turned the big egoist he was, that man so jealous of his freedom and independence, into a man anxious to start a family at last. As months went by, no news came, however, and, even worse, Mary did not look as affected as she should have been by the lack of pregnancy.

None of that unnerving apathy remained as she fought a helpless battle against the smile forming on her lips. He returned a tentative grin of his then engulfed her in a tight embrace.

"And now, I'm properly frightened," he joked his way out of potentially teary situation.

_And thank you for bearing with me._

Mary was glad for his embrace, because it was almost impossible to blink back all the tears that came as she glimpsed the split-second's glimmer of emotion in his. _Now _she knew what it was to be happy, and it was so different to what she'd thought as a girl of twenty. She'd made him happy, truly happy, for the first time in their marriage. And doing so in turn made her heart swell with more happiness than she had known it could contain.

"Sir Richard Carlisle, frightened?" she teased, splaying her hands across his back to pull him tighter against her, relishing the play of the muscles beneath his bare skin. "I don't believe it-and anyway it's not allowed on Christmas Eve. If you'd gone to midnight mass, you'd know that."

_Tidings of comfort and joy, indeed_.


End file.
